


How the Death Squad Saved New Years

by scrhaiser



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Death siblings, Gen, pjogiftexchange
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-24
Updated: 2014-12-24
Packaged: 2018-03-02 14:15:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2814959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scrhaiser/pseuds/scrhaiser
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I’m going to tell my grandkids about this someday,” Hazel yells, and Nico nearly loses his grip on the snake scales. Partly because Hazel is talking about grandkids - which means kids which means sex oh gods are Frank and his sister having sex oh gods is he supposed to buy them condoms or is he supposed to beat up Frank - but mostly, he nearly falls because the giant flying snake they’re hanging onto just did a three sixty in an effort to shake them off and create some death kid sized splatters on the pavement below.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How the Death Squad Saved New Years

**Author's Note:**

> For phrankzhang (holidayhazel).

“I’m going to tell my grandkids about this someday,” Hazel yells, and Nico nearly loses his grip on the snake scales. Partly because Hazel is talking about grandkids - which means kids which means sex oh gods are Frank and his sister having sex oh gods is he supposed to buy them condoms or is he supposed to beat up Frank - but mostly, he nearly falls because the giant flying snake they’re hanging onto just did a three sixty in an effort to shake them off and create some death kid sized splatters on the pavement below.

So far, it’s been a pretty great New Year’s Eve.

*

“Chicago,” Hazel says to him, looking over the bay. She’s in shorts and a purple shirt, sipping a fruit smoothie.

Nico turns. “Why?”

Hazel waves her hand at the bay and open blue sky. “It’s winter break, isn’t it? Let’s go somewhere cold.”

“Didn’t you grow up in New Orleans or something? Swamps and humidity?”

Hazel shrugs. “Now I’m not saying birthdays are coming up or anything, or that Michigan Avenue has some really good post Christmas sales, or that it would be nice to go somewhere where it’s a bit colder than temperate…”

It takes Nico a moment. Chicago is a gods awful city in winter- cold and slushy and generally grey and miserable. “The Art Institute,” he realizes. “You want to go to the Art Institute?”

Hazel tosses her smoothie into a trashcan as they finish crossing the bridge. “Frank gave me this colored pencil set for Christmas that I would love to try out, but I just thought we could go do something together.”

“Sure,” Nico says. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow morning.”

*

Nico was wrong. Chicago isn’t cold.

Chicago is freezing.

He pulls them out from between two hedges in Millenium Park, the wind immediately biting the skin on his cheeks, snow blowing against his eyes. “Maybe we should have worn warmer coats,” Hazel says, biting down to stop her teeth from chattering.

“Probably.” They hurry out from the gardens, past the soaring metal of the music pavilion and the oblong head sculptures, past the shiny silver bean and the dry fountains, past the crowded ice rink and across Michigan Avenue into a Panera. Even on New Year’s Eve, it’s brimming with activity and warm sandwiches.

Hazel squints through the fogged up glass. “I think they sell winter coats over there,” she says. She pulls out her black credit card; the same one he has. “I’d say Dad owes me about eighty years of Christmas gifts, wouldn’t you?”

His fingers might be about to fall off, but he smiles anyway. Hazel is good at making him do that.

*

They spend three hours wandering around the Art Institute, Nico trying to figure out why, exactly, there’s a train coming out of the fireplace while Hazel sketches Magrittes and Van Goghs and Watts and French names he can’t pronounce. Hazel insists on taking his picture in front of one painting. “It’s from a movie,” she says.

“I know.” He’s seen it. He smiles instead of crossing his arms.

Across the room, a little girl of about two years reaches up to her father. “Popcorn! Popcorn!” she chants. Her father smiles and obliges.

*

Hazel picks lunch: basement of a pizza place just off Michigan Avenue.

“Is this supposed to be Italian or something?” Nico asks, poking at their pasta appetizer curiously. It’s definitely something, he decides.

In lieu of deciding the authenticity of their pasta, Hazel asks, “How are you and Will doing?”

Nico shrugs. “We’re doing okay.” Will lives in Colorado during the year but distance doesn’t mean anything to him- after all, there’s not place on earth the sun doesn’t shine, and wherever there’s sun there’s a shadow.

The little girl from the Art Institute and her father apparantly had the same idea concerning warm basements and food. They sit on the other side of the room, the little girl smearing tomato sauce across her cheeks.

“Okay?” His sister bites into the pizza. She swallows before speaking, ever polite. “Is that ‘we’re good but I don’t feel like talking about my love life right now’ or ‘we’re not that good but I’m saying okay’?”

Will is spending Christmas and New Year’s with his cousins, but they’ve arranged to meet back in Colorado on the third of January. There’s a musical Will wants to go see with him - something about an adaptation of Annie and a really good pretzel place?

Nico thinks.

“We’re good,” he says, thinking butterflies is an accurate description. “And how are you and Frank?”

Hazel starts looking very shifty eyed.

*

“Ice skating obviously isn’t in our blood,” Nico says after Hazel falls flat on her butt for the fourth time in as many minutes. He’s managed to escape the same fate as her by hanging onto the railing with a death grip and taking baby steps forward.

“No duh,” his sister huffs, pulling herself up right.

It’s at this moment that the giant flying snake chooses to break out of one of the gigantic head sculpture and begin breathing ice on everyone.

Demigod luck.

Hazel rolls her eyes and sits down to start untying her skates. Nico takes exactly one step forward before deciding that yes, his feet will be very cold, but it will be very worth it because his butt does not need any more bruises that it already has.

They stare up at the rolling monster in the sky. “Maybe it doesn’t want to hurt anyone,” Nico says uncertainly, because he really ate too much pizza for this.

“Sure,” his sister replies. “Don’t jinx it.”

The flying snake’s turns toward them and its eyes glow blue before it roars at them.

“I jinxed it.”

Mist begins to swirl in Hazel’s hands, writhing and swirling like an angry fog. Nico draws his sword, conveniently hidden underneath the bulk of his winter coat. “I’ve got this one,” she says, raising her hands towards the gaping mouth of the snake. It draws closer and closer, a whirlwind of snow and wind gathering in its mouth- more than enough cold to turn the both of them into death kid popsicles.

“Hazel?” he asks nervously. They may have come to Chicago for cold, but there is a such thing as too much of a good thing.

“Hold steady,” she orders, staring up unwaveringly at the snake’s giant white head. The silver fog has almost disappeared- or is it that he can’t see it because it’s beyond him?

The snake opens its mouth and Hazel fires before it can, Mist - clearly visible now, no longer silver but twisting and snapping into orange flames - digs deep into the monsters open mouth. It twitches, once, twice, then collapses out of the sky and breaks the ice in the rink with a thud.

Nico quickly shoves his sword back under his coat. “That was easier than I expected it to be.”

“Don’t-” Hazel starts, just as the snake slowly blinks open one big, sapphire blue eye. “...jinx it.”  Nico quickly pulls out his sword again and leads on top of the head - it’s slimy ew why is it slimy - and stabs the Stygian iron deep into its brain with a disgusting squelch. The snake’s eyes fly wide open for a moment before slowly sliding closed. Oddly, it doesn’t disintegrate.

And then - because there’s no such thing as winter break for demigods - the three remaining head sculptures explode and out come three more giant, flying, ice breathing snakes. They hesitate for a moment, bobbing and weaving around the shattered remains of the head sculpture before beginning to climb into the sky. Hazel takes off her bag and puts it on the edge of the rink. Nico sheds his coat- but only the outer one because gods its not nearly warm enough for just a Christmas sweater. He looks down. The socks Reyna gave to him for Christmas (black, little gray skulls knitted in) are soaked in cold slime.

Nico sighs and starts running towards the snakes, but not before slipping on the remaining pieces of smooth ice and bruising his butt again. “Daddy, look!” a little kid screams from somewhere.

*

So this is how he spends his New Years Eves now: attached to a giant flying possibly-some sort-of-weird-monster-hybrid snake, hundreds of feet above Chicago with very cold feet. He slashes his sword ineffectually against the snake’s thick metal scales and is rewarded with a sudden shift in direction, causing him to nearly lose his grip and fall.

Hazel yells something at him, but he can only make out sounds over the howling wind. She takes one hand off the dragon and makes some sort of signal- gods damn why didn't he do more military maneuvers with the Romans? His sister sees his confusion and gestures sharply towards the head of the snake, then back at him. She points at herself and the middle of the snake. She finishes her game of charades with stabbing motions. Nico gives her a thumbs up. Stabbing monsters is always a good plan. Or robotic snake hybrids- the two are really quite interchangeable.

Nico starts pulling himself towards the head. This is going to be a long afternoon.

*

GIANT FLOCK OF BIRDS STRIKES HANCOCK: GLOBAL WARMING OR DRONE INTERFERENCE?

Nico puts the newspaper down and sighs. Chicago has been pretty resilient after their fight last night. Work is already being done on the building; the shattered shells of the sculptures have been cleaned off the walkways; the ice rink taped off with yellow caution tape.

Something small and furious attacks his legs and he nearly pulls out his sword before he realizes it’s a small, human shaped creature with pigtails and a bright pink coat. The toddler falls smack on her butt. "Julia," a man calls, running up and scooping her off the ground. Julia giggles. "Sorry about that," her father says.

He shrugs. "It's fine." It's the same toddler and man he saw several times yesterday, he realizes.

"Nico!" Julia shrieks, waving her arms around before slipping back into gibberish.

The cold touch of a ghost drags its fingers up and Nico's spine and he flinches.

"Happy New Years!" Julia's father says warmly before walking away. Julia waves at Nico over her father's shoulder.

He thinks, frantically, Bianca choose to be reincarnated long enough ago that it's possible - that could be her, that little girl could-

"Hot chocolate?" Hazel asks. He spins around; his sister, his little sister, the one who now offers him a cup of hot chocolate and a concerned smile. "Is everything alright?"

Nico glances over his shoulder ploy to find Julia-maybe-Bianca has disappeared along with her father. "Yeah," he says. The Chicago sky is big and blue and endless. Everyone he loves is safe and sound. He has a sister, a date, and two places he can call home. "It's a new year."

**Author's Note:**

> The train coming out of a fireplace is Magritte’s Time Transfixed.  
> There actually is a Panera just across from Millenium Park. Millenium currently does have an ice rink and those oblong head sculptures are very well done visual tricks and not, in fact, hiding giant flying snakes.


End file.
